


the ruins of a softer world

by rukafais



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, or maybe too zen??, zenyatta has a lot of feelings and also is bad at expressing them, zenyatta: not actually that zen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 00:23:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7867756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zenyatta always seems to have something to be sad about; that’s simply how the world is. Full of other people's problems, that he takes on. What’s one more thing to add to that?</p>
<p>(Everything, of course.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the ruins of a softer world

**Author's Note:**

> http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1237
> 
> Inspiration.

He’s in some distant town when he finally gets the news. Busy with errant children and small errands, mingling with the people there.

(Genji is the one who tells him, late at night, voice soft and hushed and hesitant. Hands folded over his own as he spells out Mondatta’s fate, phrase by phrase.)

The words are soft. The blow it deals to him is--

not.

“Master, do you....need anything...?”

“No, no. I am fine, Genji. I require nothing.”

He’s not fine.

He doesn’t know what he requires.

Time travel, perhaps. Some miracle. Something that would reverse the pain that cracks straight down his core and shakes all he’s learned loose from its moorings.

\--------

Genji is persistent. He would never go so far as to say Genji is annoying, but the words, the gestures, are -- intrusive. Things he doesn’t know how to feel about, stimuli that pierces through the silent bubble he’s pulled around himself. 

(He wonders if this was what it felt like, back then, when they were first getting to know each other. When he wouldn’t leave Genji alone.

It might be funny, if he wasn’t so wrapped up in his own feelings. Days pass in ways that he is only subconsciously aware of, in this state; the world moves and he stays still, cocooned in his own grief.)

He tries to picture Mondatta again, as he was. 

_as he should still be_

Hands clasped in front or behind, depending on his mood. Always in those white robes he treasures (treasured) so much. His slow gestures, his softness, his voice; surprisingly strong for all its gentleness. Turning heads with little more than his presence, and capturing their attention with his words.

The data of those memories stutter and flow imperfectly; his mind grasping at fragment after fragment, yanking his consciousness this way and that. He doesn’t know why this is; he shouldn’t yield to his emotions so

(he knows exactly why he’s behaving the way he is, why his recall skips from memory to memory)

but he does, regardless. Has already done so. 

_“I have told you to be more careful, Mondatta. What will you do if I need to go somewhere and have to leave you behind?”_

_“Ah, but it seems as if we will never be apart. Don’t you think? We make a good pair.”_

_A sigh that reverberates through his systems. “It is still something to be considered. We walk in harmony. But things might change.”_

_”Then I will deal with it when it comes,” Mondatta says, serene._

“Master?”

The voice cuts through his recall, brings him back to the present. For a moment he’s not sure where he is; part of him still clings to those memories.

(Part of him never wants to surface from it. In those moments, he can pretend that he didn’t leave. That things didn’t change.

That Mondatta wasn’t lost forever.

_It’s your fault,_ says that part, and he accepts it.)

They’ve stopped for the night, sheltering under some overhang. The moon is bright in the sky, the forest hums with life.

“Yes, Genji? Is there something wrong?”

He does an admirable job of keeping his tone, he thinks. But Genji sighs, readjusting his position.

“Yes, master. There is something wrong. It involves you.”

“What do you speak of, Genji?”

“You are grieving, master. You might be able to hide it from the people we pass by, but not from me.” Genji’s voice is a little pleading, a little sad, and it slips through the cracks, the soft points in the numbness that runs through his entire self. “Even your energy signature is different now.”

There’s silence. Even the noises of the outside world seem to have quietened, as if they’re listening, too.

It’s almost unbearable, this sense of -- waiting. This hollowed-out feeling, like the world is holding its breath.

_“Nervous? Naturally, there is a little bit of apprehension, but I feel as if I can conquer that,” Mondatta says, with a laugh. He waves his hand. “If I can speak to a crowd full of humans who have no reason to look favorably on us all, I can conquer anything.”_

_Zenyatta does not laugh; in fact, he says nothing at all. Mondatta taps his forehead, and he looks up._

_“You worry about me again, I see.”_

_“Mondatta, my friend,” Zenyatta says, a little bit of wryness sneaking in, “you make it very easy.”_

“I want to help you, but if I don’t know what troubles you, I cannot...” His voice sounds -- wrong, tremulous, in a way that makes him want to comfort him even through this numbness.

He wants to say that he’s fine, that this too is a passing sadness, that he will move on. That this is a temporary wound, though a grievous one.

The words don’t come out. Nothing does.

(I am not fine.

I cannot lie to you.)

“Please, Zenyatta.”

It’s rare for Genji to use his name. ‘Master’ is more a term of endearment, a badge of their closeness, than it is a formal title.

(It breaks through all his defenses.)

“You helped me heal when I thought I could not. Please, let me help you.”

“I--” 

The words are slow and hesitant, refusing to come out in the way he wants them to. He struggles with it.

_Why should you be helped, when you left him all alone?_

_You were his friend. Nobody knew him like you did. And you left him._

_Now, look what has happened. If you were with him still, you could have prevented it. You could have caught him as he fell, if you were by his side. If you were there._

_But you were not._

“I do not...deserve it.”

The words are weak, and frail, and he only half-believes them. Genji reaches out; it takes all of Zenyatta’s willpower not to simply close himself off again, to shut himself up with only his guilt for company.

His student - his friend - covers his hands with his own, clasping them, energy pulsing in the touch. It’s warmer than he remembers it being.

(He’s not sure when he got so cold.)

“You do,” Genji says, firmly. "You deserve it more than anyone, anyone I have ever met, so--"

Genji’s grip tightens, a little.

“ _Please_ , Zenyatta,” he says, and there’s worry in his voice, threading through every syllable. “Let me help you.”

_”You continue to burden yourself, I see.”_

_Mondatta sounds stern, for once. Zenyatta feels a bit of a twinge of guilt that he was the one to cause it, this time._

_”It really is nothing. I can handle it, Mondatta,” he begins to protest, before the other omnic shakes his head._

_”We have traveled together for so long. If you cannot confide in me, who else can you confide in? Unload what troubles you and be at peace, my friend. You cannot carry the worries of others unless you shed your own.”_

_”It is not important--”_

_“No. It is. It is of paramount importance.”_

_Mondatta interrupts him, again. Zenyatta might be amused at this assertiveness if it wasn’t his own feelings they were talking about right now._

_”You give too much, and take too little. You say your feelings are not important, but that cannot be true.”_

_”I would explain, if only you stopped interrupting me,” Zenyatta interjects, but Mondatta shakes his head quickly._

_”It needs no explaining. You give much to others for so little. It is time for you to give to yourself.”_

_To that, he has no answer, no retort, and he stays completely still as the other omnic clasps one of his hands in both of his own. The warmth of it feels like a lifeline he didn’t know he needed._

_”You are important, Zenyatta. If nothing else, remember that.”_

He looks down, at those hands holding his, and says, as honestly as he can,

“I will try.”

(Mondatta would be proud.)


End file.
